


Fools on the Run (Road to You)

by GooglyMooglies



Series: Road to You [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/F, F/M, Happy Ending, I promise, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-02 15:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1058274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GooglyMooglies/pseuds/GooglyMooglies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You can’t tell me you’ve never felt it. Alone, like there’s something there at the back of your mind demanding you pay attention to it, but you can’t quite remember what it was. Like walking into a room and forgetting why.” Reincarnation fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on tumblr on my blog (Follow me @ [yourfatherisahamster!](http://yourfatherisahamster.tumblr.com/))
> 
> This was inspired by [this art](http://yourfatherisahamster.tumblr.com/post/66661621369/miyajimamizy-happy-song-makes-me-happy-but) by miyajimamizy and [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHsuWngZthc), "Road to You" by Five for Fighting. It took a life of its own from there.
> 
> This will eventually be getting at least one companion piece.
> 
> Enjoy!

He is shell-shocked, honestly, when he first sees her (but he has no idea what he’s in for, truly). But Jean isn’t quite sure what possesses him to go up to her. He will later admit, in retrospect, that he fumbled pretty badly, though it’s soothing to his ego (eventually) to find out that’s not the reason it doesn’t turn out the way he initially hopes it would.

“Hey!” He meets her gaze, then drops his quickly enough that he misses the flash of recognition, the dawning understanding. “You, um. Sorry, you have really pretty hair, I just—”

“Jean.”

It makes him stop short, fumbling over his words as he looks at her again, blinking to see the way she’s looking at him, intently. “Um…”

“You…” She stares harder, leaning in a bit, but apparently doesn’t find what she’s looking for, because then she sighs, her brow furrowing. “You haven’t remembered yet.”

“I—what?”

“My name is Mikasa. Mikasa Ackerman. You’re Jean Kirschtein, right? Here, I’ll buy your coffee, you should come with me. Armin can explain better than I can.”

The name tugs at his memory, both names do, make him pause and frown. But he recovers, pastes on a smirk as he says, “Can’t say I’ve ever had such a beautiful girl buy  _me_  coffee before…” but he gets absolutely no reaction.

Jean frowns again, feeling lost, somehow. She hands him his order, and he follows her without another word.

Mikasa lives in a small house a few blocks away, and she unlocks the door with one hand, pushing it open and holding it open behind her.

On the couch sits a boy, on the skinny side, small-ish, with glasses perched on his nose and long blond hair that’s halfway pulled back. It suits him, Jean thinks, though the new look will take a little getting used to, because—

Wait, what?

The boy looks up from the book he’s reading, a stack of them at his side and even more on the coffee table in front of him, and his expression brightens. “Oh!”

But he seems to understand, even before Mikasa says, “He hasn’t remembered yet,” because his expression loses some of its excitement when Jean just stares blankly back, and he nods.

Then he turns his face back over his shoulder. “Hey, Eren!”

Someone comes out of a back room, the kitchen, probably, holding a can of soda in their hand. It’s another boy, taller, with lightly tanned skin and brown hair and eyes the color of the sea, and Jean feels inexplicably offended on principle just looking at his face. The feeling only grows when Eren takes one look at him, scowls, and says, “Oh, come on!  _You?_ ”

—

Mikasa and Armin together are able to prevent a fistfight in the middle of the living room, and both boys finally calm down enough to take a seat so that Armin can explain to Jean what exactly is going on.

Jean interrupts frequently, and Eren growls at him each time he does, and Jean snaps back a few times, only to be warned off by Mikasa, but finally he gets the whole story, as little sense as it makes.

“So to sum up, we’ve all been reincarnated from a former life where we all knew each other, and you guys remember but I don’t cuz I haven’t found someone specific yet.”

Armin nods. “Yeah.”

Jean frowns. “Have you guys gotten your heads examined?”

Eren snarls, shifting on the couch, and Mikasa puts a hand on his knee. Jean scowls at the flare of jealousy within him.

When he looks back at Armin, the blond is giving him a consternating look, and it makes Jean feel like a child being scolded, for some reason. “We know what we’re talking about, Jean. You can’t tell me you’ve never felt it. Alone, like there’s something there at the back of your mind demanding you pay attention to it, but you can’t quite remember what it was. Like walking into a room and forgetting why.” Jean shifts uncomfortably in his chair. Armin’s gaze is sharp as a blade, and somehow threatening despite the blond’s smaller stature. “How else could we possibly have known your name?”

Jean shrugs. “I dunno, maybe you’ve been stalking me.”

“Like anyone would wanna stalk your ass,” Eren mutters, and Jean nearly stands up, opening his mouth to reply, before Armin’s loud “ _Hey!_ ” makes them both snap their mouths closed.

A beat passes, and finally Jean huffs, running a frustrated hand through his hair as he sits back. “Okay, fine. How do I fix it, then.”

—

He can’t sleep that night, mind spinning with everything the trio had told him.

Mikasa and Eren had found each other, first, but hadn’t remembered. They just knew they needed to be together. It helped that they were neighbors, their families close, and when Mikasa’s parents had been killed, she moved in with Eren’s family. Jean didn't ask how they'd died.

It took meeting Armin on the first day of sophomore year of high school for everything to suddenly fall in place, for all three of them.

The look the three had shared when Armin had mentioned finding each other held such a deep significance, one that Jean felt he couldn’t even hope to understand, it shook him to his bones.

Jean lays in bed and stares at the darkened ceiling and feels restless.

—

He meets Sasha when he leaves his meal card in his dorm and realizes the fact as he’s trying to check out at lunch one day.

“Hey! I’ll spot you, it’s no big deal! Here, yeah, put his food with mine!”

The cashier rings them up together, and Jean feels the pull of  _something_  as he looks at her, brown ponytail, brown eyes, easy grin.

“There ya go, no sweat!” And he barely has time to thank her before she’s walking off.

“H-hey, wait!”

He brings her with him to Eren, Mikasa, and Armin’s house, saying he’ll buy her dinner to make up for buying him lunch if she goes with him, and she easily agrees, and the somewhat manic look in her eyes at the prospect of the free meal seems appropriate, somehow.

The surprisingly fond look on Mikasa’s face when she answers the door lets him know he was right.

—

Sasha is bright, and funny, and has an infectious laugh and a voracious appetite, but sometimes, Jean thinks she looks a little sad. Lonely, maybe.

He tries kissing her, just once, when she gets that sad look, and she blinks at him and her smile wobbles a bit when she tries to spread it over her face.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. “I know I’m not the right one.”

Her smile slides away, and Jean almost feels worse than before, but then she tucks herself under his arm and presses her face to his shoulder.

They stay that way for a long time.

—

Once, as he’s on his way home from the leasing office, because he and Sasha decided they would get an apartment together starting that summer, he stops by a café on the walk back to campus, and runs into Eren in the midst of bidding goodbye to a short, dark-haired man, who catches sight of Jean and raises an eyebrow.

Jean stares back, and the man sighs. “Not yet, huh.”

Eren answers before Jean can make a fuss. “No, not—not yet. Jean, this is—Levi.”

Levi nods once at him. “Good luck.” And with that, he turns and walks away.

When Jean looks to Eren, expression demanding an explanation, Eren shrugs. “He’s—like that.”

—

Jean curses himself for not thinking of it sooner, when Sasha suddenly sits up and looks to Armin on the other end of the couch at their house one night. “What’re—what’re their names? The others? The ones you guys remember?”

Armin blinks. “It… you won’t remember them until you see them.” He explains, patiently, how Levi and Hanji had heard and seen the name Erwin Smith countless times, a mix-up of the mail-man who couldn’t tell 7B from 8B if his life depended on it, but it had meant nothing until they’d met in the elevator nearly three months after living above one another. Jean is annoyed, because he’d met Levi, but the other two names are unfamiliar to him. Armin, Eren, and Mikasa, they know so much, and Jean feels like each name Armin gives him is a puzzle piece, the images on them faded to grey, with no clue as to how the original picture is supposed to look.

Sasha frowns. “But maybe… What if I—” She cuts herself off with another frown, and Armin sits up a little.

“Do you think you found someone?”

“This girl in my art class, her name’s Christa—”

“Is it really,” Armin murmurs, and Jean can’t help the way his eyes narrow in suspicion.

“She’ll be looking for Ymir.” Mikasa joins them, sitting on the couch next to Armin in a way that seems a bit too close, for anyone that didn’t know them. Armin shifts and accommodates her in his space effortlessly.

Sasha stares at them with wide, wondering eyes. “I know someone named Ymir.”

—

Christa is really, really cute. Gosh, she’s cute, tiny and blonde with big blue eyes, and Jean’s a little bit awestruck when she smiles prettily at him and introduces herself over the table in the coffee ship on campus. Sasha is anxious, bouncing her knee and checking her phone every thirty seconds, and Christa keeps glancing at her, obviously concerned as she chats with Jean and asks him all sorts of questions, like she genuinely wants to know about his life and where he’s from and what he does for fun and what he’s studying and is he dating anyone right now? Jean answers all of her questions, feeling a little overwhelmed, when Sasha suddenly grips the edge of the table, her knuckles going white as she stares at the door.

Jean looks up in time to see a tall girl with olive skin and dark brown hair walk in, laughing over her shoulder at someone else before she looks forward, and he hears the soft gasp Christa gives at his side.

It’s easy to spot, the moment she sees them, as her eyes brighten in recognition when she sees Sasha and then she freezes, the color draining from her face.

Jean feels Christa make to stand up next to him, and the girl ( _Ymir,_  he recalls) takes an abortive step backwards, as if she can’t decide whether or not to run away. She’s blocking traffic through the door and obviously not caring, paying no mind to any other soul in the room.

Her expression twists, and Jean watches in shock as she starts to cry. It feels wrong, somehow, like she would be the last one to… but no, large drops start to roll down her cheeks as her breath grows short, clutching desperately at the doorframe, and Jean sees her mouth something silently.

Christa is out of her chair and across the room in an instant, pushing past other tables and chairs and people, reaching Ymir before she has a chance to turn around, grasping at her arms, her shoulders, her face, pulling her down and holding onto her, with the same wide-eyed look of disbelief the whole time.

Sasha and Jean both stand and make their way to the pair, but Sasha holds a hand out before they get too close as both girls slide to the ground, completely ignoring everyone around them.

They’re close enough to hear Ymir’s voice shake as she whispers “I’m sorry” over and over into Christa’s shoulder, fingers pulling at the fabric of her shirt, and Christa shushes her and strokes her head and back, a constant stream of “It’s okay, I’m here, I found you” murmured into Ymir’s hair.

—

Jean and Sasha stay up late that night, watching bad TV and eating junk food and not talking much at all, and around 2 a.m. Sasha’s phone makes a noise signaling an incoming text. She frowns, making a questioning noise, but when she checks the message, her expression softens into that lonely smile he sees on her still from time to time.

Jean frowns, then scoots closer on the couch and yanks her over to lean against him. She makes a startled noise before settling, pressing close to his side and tilting the screen of her phone up so he can see.

It’s from Christa, and all it says is ‘ _Thank you.’_

—

Jean goes to Armin, Mikasa, and Eren’s house the next day after lunch, knocking on the door.

He blanches, scowling, when Eren answers the door – he’d texted Armin, asking if he was home, but hadn’t thought to ask if he was alone.

“I’m here to talk to Armin.” That gets him a scowl in return, but Eren steps aside, even as Armin perks up on the couch and waves.

Jean stands in the middle of the living room and fidgets, debating asking if they can just go to Armin’s room, because the way Eren’s watching him is freaking him out, but he tells himself not to be a loser and pushes it out of his mind.

“Who am I looking for?”

Armin blinks, taken aback. Then his gaze slides to Eren as he shifts slightly and Jean has to swallow down his frustration.

“You know, don’t you? Come on, just—tell me their name, I’m—”

“It won’t  _mean_  anything, I told you before—”

“But it could help, right? Come  _on_ , just—”

Eren pipes up. “Just listen to him, Jean, and back off—”

“Shut  _up,_  Jaeger, I’m not talking to you—”

“Well  _I’m_ talking to  _you_  and I’m telling you to  _back off—”_

“Okay guys, there’s no need to fight about it, everyone just—”

Mikasa comes downstairs, frowning, and shit, they’re both here, he should’ve just asked Armin to meet him somewhere. But it’s too late now, and Eren is snarling at him and his hands are balled into fists, so Jean forges onward.

“Come  _on,_  Armin, this isn’t fair! I know you know, I could maybe look them up, or—”

“What the  _hell_ makes you think we haven’t?!” The fury in Eren’s voice actually makes Jean stop short, this time.

“Eren, please—”

“ _Eren—”_ And that’s the first thing Mikasa’s said, but Eren plows right over her and Armin both.

“ _No!_  Armin, you almost got caught when you hacked into the University databases, that shit could’ve gotten you  _expelled_ , okay? We’ve been  _looking_ , we’ve been searching, doing our best for the past  _year_ , ever since Mikasa _brought_ you here, trying to find him, so don’t you  _dare_  come in here and makes demands of Armin like some pompous, entitled jerk!”

Jean stares.

It’s a long moment before he can find his voice again, and it’s small, strained, when he does so.

“Armin… you—you almost got expelled?”

Armin shrugs, looking away, like it’s no big deal. “No! No, I didn’t, that’s—it was only if I got caught, then I would’ve been in trouble, but—”

“Which you  _almost did_ ,” Eren grinds out.

Jean glances at Mikasa and her expression is a warning.

He grits his jaw, scowling at the coffee table.

Silence hangs in the air.

“Marco.”

Jean looks up at Armin, blinking.

“ _Armin—”_ Mikasa actually takes a step forward, but Armin gives her a look and she stops, then frowns, her shoulders sagging.

Then the blond looks back to Jean, meeting his gaze levelly. “His name’s Marco. The person you need to find.” He looks away, the determination of his expression cracking. “At—at least, we’re fairly certain. Given how things were…”

“Marco,” Jean repeats back. Armin nods.

And Jean feels like crying with frustration, because the name means nothing to him. It holds no weight in his mind whatsoever.

—

The weather turns cold again, and Jean, Sasha, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin are walking across campus Friday evening when the latter three stop short at the sight of a group on the other side of the street.

The hair on the back of Jean’s neck stands up on end as Eren hisses out a vicious  _“You,”_  his expression hardening to the point of breaking, a fury etched along the lines in his face that chills Jean to his core. The step Eren takes forward is cut short by both Mikasa and Armin grabbing ahold of his arms forcefully, yanking him back as he struggles.

Across the street, three people stand. A blond with broad shoulders and a face that seems like it could be friendly, under different circumstances, has shifted to stand between Eren and his companions, a blonde girl almost as small as Christa who watches with a careful, hooded expression, and a tall, nervous looking boy with tanned skin and brown hair. The blond holds out his arms in front of both his friends, meeting Eren’s furious gaze levelly.

They say nothing.

Mikasa and Armin hold Eren until he calms somewhat, the pair murmuring in his ear until he’s only spitting hellfire and insults and not actively fighting against the two people in the world he cares most for to get across the street.

Jean makes eye contact with the taller boy, who flinches, barely able to hold his gaze. Jean just frowns because he has no idea what’s going on. Sasha shifts closer to him, and a glance shows she’s watching the trio with cautious, confused eyes.

Finally Eren falls quiet, his breath billowing in the cold air as he pants, sagging against Armin and Mikasa.

The blond boy shifts, then takes a step back, and Jean can see his lips form the shapes of “ _Let’s go.”_

They turn, but the blond makes sure to trail after his friends, keeping himself between them and Eren, and looks back over his shoulder every few steps as they make their way down the street.

—

One day, right before finals, Jean’s car breaks down and he ends up taking the bus home because it’s apparently going to take them a few days to fix it because they don’t have some part they need. The city buses have two doors, one at the front where you get on and pay, then the back where you exit. He spends the entire ride hanging onto the safety handle above his head by the back door, earphones in, leaning conspicuously away from a fat man with awful body odor. As he steps off the bus at his stop, something pulls at him, making him stumble. He stops, and turns, and the doors behind him close, and the doors at the front of the bus shut, and the bus pulls away.

He checks his pocket, confirming he has his phone and his keys and his wallet, but as he watches the bus turn a corner, he can’t help but feel like he’s forgotten something.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jean's chest aches with a strange emptiness as he stares at himself in the mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned previously, this was inspired by [this art](http://yourfatherisahamster.tumblr.com/post/66661621369/miyajimamizy-happy-song-makes-me-happy-but) and [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHsuWngZthc). If you listen to the song again, 1:59 to 2:06 is a very important moment in the song in regards to this chapter - while the art and the overall song itself served to help form the general idea, that stretch of 7 seconds essentially was the spark that brought it truly to life. I listen to the song well over fifty times (probably closer to or over a hundred times, actually), and I don’t even know how many times I listened to those specific 7 seconds over the course of writing this part.

There’s a guy in his Lit class spring semester that tugs at something in Jean’s mind. The third day of class, the guy makes a stupid joke and Jean barks out a laugh, because it’s exactly the kind of joke Sasha would think was funny. The guy glances back at Jean and grins like he’s a little surprised he got a laugh at all, the look of someone used to others not truly appreciating his comic genius.

After class, Jean asks if he wants to grab lunch, and during lunch he tries out a joke that Sasha had told him last week and Connie thinks it’s  _hilarious_.

“Ah, no, it’s my roommate, not me, she’s the funny one,” Jean explains, feeling awkward even as he grins, pulse hammering beneath his skin. “You should meet her,” he tries, hoping Connie doesn’t think he sounds as stilted and awkward as he sounds in his own ears.

But Connie doesn’t notice, or maybe he just pretends not to, and agrees to come over to hang out.

—

“Sasha??” His voice sounds strained, panicked, in his ears, but Sasha isn’t home and Jean nearly swears.

His fingers tap, nervous, against the console as he fiddles with it, putting in something for them to do while they wait for her to get home (because that’s what they’re doing, even if Connie doesn’t know it, and Jean considers telling him, but Armin was always better at explaining, and Jean hasn’t even remembered yet, so).

He relaxes after a good thirty minutes of Connie kicking his ass (“Ha! Thought you said you were good at this, come on! Gimme a challenge here!”) but the sound of the door clicking open makes his heart jump in his throat and he turns back to the door and Connie whoops at another point scored.

Sasha grins when she sees him and then her eyes widen and she goes impossibly still.

Her lip quivers, and her gaze darts from Connie, who has yet to turn, to notice the silence stretching across the living room, to Jean, her expression going bleak, and for one terrible moment Jean is afraid he’s done something wrong.

Her hand goes up to cover her mouth before a sob can escape and  _finally_ Connie looks back, about to scold Jean for giving up, and he sees her and it looks as if he’s been punched, the way his eyes go wide and his breath whooshes out all at once.

Sasha leans back against the doorframe, and her eyes are glistening in a way that makes Jean panic because he never could handle girls crying, but then Connie surges up next to him. But it’s wrong, he runs away, stumbling to the bathroom and Jean winces, feeling ill as he hears the sound of Connie vomiting into the toilet.

Sasha hears it too, and she finally breaks, sobbing once, tears spilling down her face, and Jean scrambles up, tries to go to her. Apologies tumble from his lips, but she shakes her head furiously, wiping at her eyes with the heel of her hand as she takes unsteady steps forward.

“No, no, it’s— _shit,_ ” she’s reaching, but not for him. “ _Connie.”_

She goes to the bathroom, nearly tripping over her own feet, like she’s drunk, and leaves Jean there in front of the still open door, feeling lost.

He finally moves, closing the door, picking up Sasha’s bag where it’s slipped from her grasp and putting it on the side table, and sends a text to Armin. He’ll know what to do. Then he finally goes to the bathroom to find them there, Sasha pressed up against Connie’s back, her arms around him. His eyes are closed, head laying back against her shoulder. They’re red-rimmed when they crack open to peer up at Jean.

“Asshole,” he croaks. “Could’ve given a guy a little warning.”

Sasha makes a soft noise, and Jean shrugs, looking away. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

That makes Connie blink, shifting in Sasha’s arms, as loathe as she is to let him move away. “You—haven’t found…?” And Jean shrugs one shoulder again, staring hard at the sink.

His phone rings.

It’s Armin, voice high and thin, asking Jean what’s happening. Jean gives him the basics, and Armin tells him they’ll be over right away.

Great.

—

Armin and Eren and Mikasa come over and the whole group spends a good hour chatting and catching up and it’s a big happy reunion party.

Jean feels stretched thin and tight, emotionally drained, and each time the group bursts into uproarious laughter over some comment from a sly-eyed Armin or grinning Connie, it saps his energy further. And the occasional glance he gets only makes it worse.

Connie and Sasha talk for hours on the couch, once Armin and Eren and Mikasa finally leave, and Jean goes to his room to avoid feeling too left out. The sounds of their laughter still filters through the door, and he puts on headphones eventually, and after nearly two hours of mindlessly scrolling reddit, he pulls one headphone off his ear to listen. It’s gone quiet, so he shuts down his laptop and goes to bed.

Thirty minutes later and he still hasn’t fallen asleep, but there’s a soft knock on his door before it creaks open.

“Jean?”

It’s Sasha, and he grunts at her softly, not rolling over.

He listens to her pad into the room, and the edge of his bed dips under her weight as she crawls on, moving in close and curling up behind him.

“Thank you,” she whispers, and he makes a low, non-committal noise.

They lay like that for a few minutes before Jean rolls onto his back. “Connie go home?”

She tucks in closer, shaking her head. “No, he’s fallen asleep on the couch.”

Another minute, and then: “Jean, really. Thank you.” He just grunts again, and she sits up to stare at him in the dark. “No, I’m serious, Jean. It’s…”

He waits.

“I’m sorry, about…” she trails off, and Jean wonders just what it is she’s sorry for. “It’s gonna be okay.”

—

He’s woken up two nights later by the sound of Sasha screaming.

—

Jean is going to kill Armin.

He really, really is. He doesn’t care that Mikasa would make his own death as painful as possible.

After being jolted awake by Sasha’s screams, he’d rushed to her bedroom to find her in the grip of a night terror.

Now he’s on the phone with the blond, trying not to panic as Sasha shakes and cries, curled into a corner of her bed.

“What is happening,” he hisses into the phone. “Armin, I swear—”

“I’m on my way, just—hold on, Mikasa is going to find Connie, she’s taking the car so I’m walking over—” from the sound of it, he is jogging, at least, but it does little to calm Jean’s nerves.

“Connie lives in a dorm on campus, it’s three in the fucking morning, how is she—”

“She’ll  _manage,_ okay, he’s not answering his phone but—”

“Christ, just  _hurry_ , alright?”

He hangs up, then turns back to Sasha. God, what was it you’re supposed to do when someone’s having a panic attack? This is kind of like that, right? He’d read something about it online somewhere… Are you supposed to touch them? Say something? Jean reaches out for a moment before pulling his hand away. No, wait, that can’t be right.

_Come on, just say something!_

“Sasha, Sasha it’s Jean, it’s me, I’m still here, I’m—” he cuts himself off, feeling helpless. With a low noise of frustration, he grabs his phone again and searches ‘friend having panic attack,’ clicking the first result, scrolling through the wikihow article quickly and scowling. It recommends getting medical attention. Less than helpful. “Gee, maybe I should search ‘help my friend has been reincarnated and is remembering her past life and it apparently  _sucked,_ ’” he mutters under his breath as he continues to scroll through the article. That moment there’s a loud pounding on the door, and Jean freezes, looking up to the door of Sasha’s room, then back to her, then to his phone, swearing. The article also said not to leave the person alone…

“Aw, shit,” Jean nearly snarls, tossing his phone onto the bed and running for the door, unlocking it and yanking it open.

Armin is there, and he’s on the phone. He pushes past Jean with barely a glance. “—Okay, just—yeah, I figured he’d be—just pick him up and get him over here if you have to— _gently—_ they need—”

Jean scowls, dogging his heels back to Sasha’s room, then Armin gives one last “okay, see you soon” to the phone and hangs up, climbing right onto the bed as he mutters something under his breath and crawls to Sasha, placing his hands on her shoulders. She cries out at the contact, and Jean yells.

“Hey! Don’t—”

But Armin ignores him, talking to Sasha. “Sasha, it’s Armin, you’re fine, you’re safe, I promise, there’s no danger anymore, we’re all okay,” he says, voice intent and focused. She whimpers, sitting up and pushing back into the corner, arms wrapping around herself, fingers grasping at the shirt she’s wearing, her eyes wide and near unseeing as she turns them to Armin, tears running down her face. Armin looks over his shoulder and hisses at Jean to  _get down here_.

Jean  _really_  wants to snap at him, yell, hit something, because he doesn’t know what’s going on, much less how to help, but he crawls onto the bed too, and his scowl deepens further when Armin commands him, “Not there, over here, don’t crowd her, just—”

It’s another long minute of encouraging Sasha to breathe, telling her it’s okay, and Jean tries to say “it’s not real” once and Armin actually backhands him across the arm with a pointed “ _Don’t._ ”

Then the door to the apartment bursts open. Both Jean and Armin look up, and Mikasa and Eren appear in the doorway in moments, Connie supported between them. He’s white as a sheet and shaking so badly Eren and Mikasa shake too with the force of it. He has the same unseeing expression on his face, but then Sasha makes a desperate noise and Connie blinks, awareness bleeding into his expression. Jean looks back and Sasha is reaching for Connie across the room. He lifts his face and sees her, and pushes away from Mikasa and Eren with such force that Eren actually stumbles back, hitting the open door.

Connie claws his way to the bed and across it, meeting Sasha halfway, and they cling to each other and the tension drains away from their bodies. The tension likewise eases from the room.

Jean feels lost, as is becoming more common these days.

Armin is muttering under his breath again, and Jean looks at him to see the blond scowling at the floor. When he listens past the gasping breaths of the pair on the bed, Jean can actually make out the words: “Stupid, stupid, stupid, should’ve known, stupid,” until Mikasa says his name quietly from across the room. He looks up, and the harsh expression on his face fades.

Jean watches them and his mood twists into frustration.

Finally, with a low noise of annoyance, he stands and stalks out of the room to the kitchen.

—

It’s a good ten minutes where Jean stands in the kitchen holding a glass of water and scowling at the sink before there’s a noise in the entryway, prompting him to look up.

Eren steps into the kitchen, watching Jean warily with a frown and furrowed brow.

Jean scoffs and looks away.

“I’m sorry.”

“Go away.”

He hears the sharp intake of breath that means Eren is scowling at him, but when Jean glances up again, the other boy has looked away, his expression gone unsure.

Mikasa calls them both softly from Sasha’s room.

“We’ll stay the rest of the night, just in case. They shouldn’t sleep alone for the next few days, either.”

Jean frowns at the doorframe. “Whatever.”

His frown deepens when that doesn’t get him a response save for both of them watching him with identical expressions on their faces, and he shrugs one shoulder. “I’m—going to bed.”

—

A month later, and Jean sometimes thinks maybe, just maybe, they’re all crazy, or maybe this is all some elaborate joke, as he walks down the hall, heading back to his room away from where he can hear Sasha and Connie still laughing in front of the TV. But he catches sight of his reflection in the hall mirror, and on his face is the same look Sasha used to get, the sad, lonely one, the one he hasn’t seen on her once since they found Connie.

Jean’s chest aches with a strange emptiness as he stares at himself.

He shakes his head, scoffing, and goes to his room, where he puts on his headphones and turns his music up as loud as he can stand it.

—

“Can you get some bread, too? And eggs, we’re out of eggs. And soda! Get coke! Not diet, real coke!”

“Yeah, yeah, alright! Be back soon!” Jean yells back over his shoulder as he tugs the door shut behind him, swinging his keys around one finger.

Today’s been an okay day, easier than he’s had in a while, and his steps feel lighter, somehow, as he heads down the stairs to his car to head to the grocery store. It’s a welcome reprieve, honestly, and he could use a few more days like it. Maybe things are turning up.

—

That’s it.

That’s him.

Dark brown hair, so much so it’s nearly black, just beginning to curl around his ears, and Jean’s crushed a corner of the egg carton he’s holding.

_Turn around turn around please look I’m here_

There’s egg leaking over his fingers, dripping, and he takes a stumbling step forward, his heart in his throat, a name half-formed on his lips ( _What was it what was his name come_ on).

His sneakers slip, briefly, on the floor, when he steps on the raw eggs, and he drops the carton, not caring, barely hearing the “Sir?” that one of the workers has extended towards him, can’t hear can’t see can’t think over the mental image  _memory_ of a fire burning everything that mattered away as  _I can’t see which one is you anymore_  the smell of ash fills his nose, making him choke.

What is his name Armin had said it what was it he can’t  _remember_ just think think _come on, remember, his name is—_

“H-hey!” But Jean’s voice is weak, caught in his throat like his heart and his chest constricts  _hear me listen please turn around_  and like a miracle  _he_ _does_.

_Oh._

Marco, it’s Marco, it’s always been Marco, Jean’s chest feels like it’s bursting, as Marco glances over his shoulder and stops, eyes widening to see a stranger staring at him like he’s the answer to everything (he  _is)_ and Jean stops, forces himself to stop before he reaches out to him.

“Oh…” and Marco smiles and it’s a dawn breaking. “Hello.”  _It’s you_ , he doesn’t say.

Jean is shaking as Marco reaches for him, because fuck off, Eren, you never said it was this bad, Armin should have warned him that the barrage of memories, the sudden rush of information, of  _remembrance_ , can be paralyzing, though perhaps he should have known, watching Sasha, oh, God, Sasha, and Connie, and her name isn’t Christa, it’s Historia, and  _Ymir and Reiner and Bertoldt and Annie_. He remembers everything, the man at the café with Eren,  _Levi_ , and of course, Hanji, and Erwin, the names all fit into place, it all fits and it’s terrible and terrifying.

Marco’s hand slides over his arm and Jean gasps and he jerks forward, grasping at Marco’s shoulders and pulling him close in the middle of the grocery store. Marco holds him as he shakes, feels as if he’s going to shake right apart, and Marco says his name and Jean sobs, broken, once.

He pulls away, suddenly, as memories keep forcing their way into his mind, demanding his attention, and his hands scramble over Marco’s arm, clutch his face, and he’s somehow distantly aware that he’s crying, but he can’t quite feel anything save for where Marco holds his hands where they’re pressed to Marco’s jaw.

“That bad, huh?” Marco gives him that same soft smile like he always did and Jean chokes out another strangled noise.

“Where have you been,” he whispers, furious. He yanks Marco to him and clings to his shoulders. Marco trembles as he wraps his own arms around Jean.

—

It takes the clerk a good handful of attempts to get their attention, and finally the two separate, as unwilling as Jean may be. Marco just gives the stern-looking woman a sheepish grin, rubbing the back of his head. “S-sorry,” he says. “Childhood friend.”

“Been a while?”

Jean ducks his head. “Yeah. You could say that.”

They apologize and sort of help clean up the carton of eggs Jean dropped, and gather up the basket Marco had let slip from his grasp in favor of their embrace, then Jean turns to Marco, entirely unashamed in the way he reaches out to grab his sleeve.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Marco’s eyes widen, pleased, but he glances at the basket they’d set to rights. “I gotta—”

Jean nearly growls. “Marco, I will literally buy your food for you, please just—” He nearly bites his tongue.

Marco just smiles, and Jean’s stomach swoops into his throat.

“Come on, self check-out will be faster.”

Jean swallows, nodding wordlessly. He can barely tear his gaze away from Marco’s face.

Marco had ridden his bike to the store, and Jean doesn’t accept any arguments; he just opens the trunk, thanking his parents silently for getting him a big enough car that he can fold down the back seat to fit Marco’s bike in alongside the groceries.

They talk the whole ride back to the apartment, trying to learn more about the other’s life now.

When Jean pushes the door open, Sasha and Connie are where he left them.

“Jeeeeaaaann, I forgot to tell you to get more instant ramen, did you—” Sasha whines, looking over her shoulder, but she stops when she sees his face, her gaze sharpening as she goes on alert. Jean feels himself nod, and her eyes widen.

_Sasha_. She’s—

He shakes himself, realizing he’s stopped in the doorway, Marco waiting patiently behind him, and Jean hurriedly steps inside.

Sasha spots Marco behind him, and her joy is breathless, boundless as it overtakes her face in a smile that spills into high, bubbling laughter as she cries Marco’s name. She vaults over the couch, tackling them both in a whirling hug. Connie whoops, exuberant, his grin sharp as he follows, scrambling after her to leap into the fray and send them all crashing into the wall.

It takes a good five minutes of laughing and yelling to get properly upright again, and they close the door, Connie calls Armin, ever reliable to have his cell phone and answer when it’s one of them, and it’s another party.

The trio arrives, they’ve broken out beers and Sasha’s produced snacks out of thin-air (Jean still can’t understand how she manages to steal his food while she still has obvious stores around her room), and it’s great, he’s great, things are amazing, he’s  _found him_ , and then Marco turns to everyone and smiles, and says, “So is this everyone we’ve found? Where’s everyone else?”

The room goes silent.

“W-well, Ymir and Hist—uh, Christa, um, they’re probably busy tonight, most nights they are,” Sasha tries, attempting a smile, but it slides away quickly, eyes going wide and fearful, when Marco turns to her and speaks.

“And Reiner and Bertoldt? What about Annie? Or—”

“ _Don’t_.” It’s Eren, and he’s stood up, expression bleak and hands clenched into fists.

Marco stares up at him, frowning, concerned, and he looks to Jean and his expression goes blank from shock.

Jean realizes he’s staring at Marco in horror, and he jerks his gaze away, feeling ill as images attempt to overlay themselves onto Marco’s face ( _blood half-there half-gone blood teeth bared_ blood).

“What…” Marco’s voice is a whisper. “What happened?”

“You died,” Jean hears himself croak. “You died, and I—they— _shit—”_ He stands, fleeing from the room, ignoring the calls of his friends to shut himself in the bathroom, gripping the sink until his knuckles turn white.

Their voices filter to him slowly, muffled, and finally there’s a soft knock on the door.

“Jean?” It’s Sasha, and he’s endlessly grateful.

She opens the door slowly. He doesn’t move, but she steps forward and wraps her arms around him anyways.

“Come back, please,” she whispers.

He goes.

—

Telling Marco takes hours. Armin does most of it, with the occasional input from Eren, except for Utgard, where Connie takes over briefly, and Sasha chimes in with where she was, and Jean eyes the way her knee brushes Marco’s. He is suddenly reminded of how they had to tell her, too, the story of how the people they loved were monsters in disguise all along.

How the monsters they fought were people.

He glances at Marco to find him staring back, expression bleak. Jean can’t meet his eyes. He looks away.

—

Having gotten most of the story out, Armin, Eren, and Mikasa all leave, giving Marco their phone numbers and making him promise to call if he needs anything. Connie heads back to campus, and Sasha retreats back to her room after watching the two them for a long moment.

Marco speaks first.

“You… joined the Survey Corps.”

Jean nods wordlessly.

“Because of me…” That makes Jean look up. “Right?”

Jean bows his head. “I didn’t—” He nearly chokes on the words. “I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me.”

“ _Jean_.” And Marco is suddenly in front of him, on his knees, grasping his hands. “Jean, I could never—” His voice cracks. “God, Jean, I’m so proud, I—”

And Jean looks up at his face and is struck by how pale Marco is, he’s nearly white, the freckles across his nose and cheeks stark against his skin, and God, it finally occurs to him, he may have been the one to find Marco, but Marco  _died_ , he was alone, he—

Slowly, Jean lifts up his left hand, pressing it to Marco’s face. Marco closes his eyes and shudders, swallowing thickly and grimacing.

_How could I be so selfish, even now?_

Jean slides off the couch and onto his knees with Marco on the floor, wrapping his arms around him, a hand threading through his hair as he holds the other boy tightly. They stay that way until Marco stops shaking.

Distantly, Jean hears the soft click of Sasha’s door closing again.

—

They end up falling asleep there on the floor, shoulders pressed together. The next morning, Sasha gently wakes them, offering coffee and tea and toast to them both.

Jean definitely feels like skipping class, but then Marco stretches once and says he better get going if he wants to make it in time for his 10:30 Government class.

And Jean can’t help feeling a little bitter, because he’d just had the idea of asking Marco to ditch (or just hoping beyond hope he didn’t have class today at all) and spend the day with him.

_You’re not special, Jean Kirschtien._

But Marco is  _his_ , he’s the answer, he was the one Jean’s been looking for this whole time, it isn’t  _fair—_

But no, he reminds himself. Marco changed everything for Jean, but how much did  _he_  change for Marco?

Marco  _died._

He forces himself away from the thought. Marco is here, now, and that’s what matters, right?

“Could I get my bike from your car, Jean?” Marco’s smile is tentative yet fond.

Then both boys’ eyes widen at each other.

“ _Shit—”_

“My groceries!!”

—

Jean promises to buy Marco another carton of milk, and more butter, and another pint of ice cream, and silently resolves to not let Marco pay the cost of getting the carpet shampooed like he insists on doing (“Jean, it’s the least I can do!”). He’ll… go to Marco’s house, apartment, wherever the hell he’s living and stick the money into the mail slot if that’s what it takes.

Sasha has an anthropology class to get to, so she gives them both hugs, standing on her tiptoes to whisper in Jean’s ear. “I told you. I’m so happy you found him.” Her eyes are knowing and fond and overjoyed as she pulls away, smiling at him, then she waves and is gone.

They get Marco’s bike out of his car, and before Marco clambers on to get going, he turns back to Jean and smiles.

Jean shifts on his feet.

_Don’t…_

Then Marco steps forward and wraps his arms around Jean’s shoulders, and Jean tries not to cling to him too desperately.

“It’s gonna be okay, yeah?”

Jean hesitates—then nods into Marco’s shoulder.

Marco pulls back just far enough to look at Jean’s face, his gaze determined, hopeful. “We’re—we’ll be fine.”

“Yeah,” Jean agrees, staring back at Marco, and—something shifts in Marco’s expression, and Jean feels the strangest sense of anticipation, but then Marco steps away. He gives Jean that same smile that he always did, friendly and open and Jean tries on one of his own. It doesn’t feel quite right, but Marco’s smile widens, and then he waves, hopping onto his bike.

Jean watches until he can’t see him anymore. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Alright, fine. Let’s just—let’s just get it over with.”

They know better, now, than to try sleeping alone on the third night. Armin, Eren, and Mikasa all confirm that that’s when the nightmares started for them, and Sasha asked Ymir but Ymir wouldn’t give her an answer, so Historia had to answer for her and told Sasha yes, both of them woke up with horrible nightmares the third night after they found each other.

“Levi said—well. They had—problems too. With dreams. Trouble sleeping,” Eren adds, looking a little uncomfortable.

Sasha promises to keep an ear open, to be on high alert just in case.

That evening, Marco arrives, and he smiles when Jean answers the door, but it’s strained and he’s just a little pale beneath his freckles.

Jean’s heart is pounding in his chest, and a cold sense of dread is sending icy tendrils curling around his ribs.

Sasha bakes a frozen pizza, and after they eat and spend a few more hours together, watching TV in the living room, she bids them goodnight. Jean notes the way her smile is thin and doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

Once she’s gone, Jean glances at Marco to find him looking back expectantly, so Jean stands up.

They sit in Jean’s room, Jean in his desk chair and Marco on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together, Marco’s duffel on the floor.

Finally, Jean swears softly. Marco looks up at him, a tightness around his eyes.

“Man, fuck sleeping.” It’s bad enough, honestly, Jean thinks, that Armin suggested they sleep in the same room. After two and a half days of sorting out the rush of new memories, it didn’t take long to figure out that after Marco— _died, he died_ , Jean reminds himself, he’d… well, he’d changed. Of course he’d changed, Jean knew that much, but it was an entirely differently thing to be suddenly remembering you were—Jean swallows.

Breathes in and out, before he lets the thought surface.

In love.

Suddenly remembering you were in love with someone in a past life.

So yeah, sleeping in the same room as him? So not happening.

Marco grins at him, one eyebrow quirked in amused disbelief, but it’s half-hearted.

“Seriously, man. It’s not like we’re gonna even be asleep for that long, so there’s basically no point, we’re just gonna wake up in an hour or two and be all fucked up for the next twenty four hours as a result. What’s the point? Let’s just chug a few red bulls and play video games the whole night.”

“But what happens tomorrow night?”

Jean stops, stares at Marco: slouched forward, face drawn, pale.

Jean  _hates—_

He makes a frustrated noise. He never asked for this, for any of it. “Alright, fine. Let’s just—let’s just get it over with.”

They change, and Jean takes the comforter off the bed and one of his pillows. Marco lets him go out to the living room with only a light protest (“Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in your own bed? Jean, I—” “It’s fine, you stay.” “Alright…”), and Jean can’t decide if it’s better that way.

He settles in on the couch and the light from his room goes out.

His heart thumps beneath his ribs.

After watching the shadows on the wall for a long while, Jean finally curses silently to himself, then turns over and closes his eyes.

—

_Run hurry faster death from above the sound of breaking bone and screams silence the stench of rot blood fire ash burning pain help no_

—

“—ean!!  _Jean!”_

He gasps, flails, and things go sideways for a horrifying, dizzying moment before he hits the ground.

“Jean  _what are you doing out here why—”_

But he doesn’t answer Sasha, clad in a t-shirt that’s big enough to come down to mid-thigh. He’ll apologize later, when he can function, but right now he simply vomits at her feet, heaving and shaking like he’s going to shake right out of his skin.

“ _Marco,_ ” he croaks, and Sasha is pulling him to his feet. He can’t stand on his own, not until she manages to get him to the door of his room.

He wrenches away from her, stumbling once, colliding with the doorframe, the mostly-closed door banging open, and  _he’s there_ , sweating and trembling and whimpering in the darkness, sheets clutched in a death grip, fingers tearing at the fabric.

Marco cries out at the hands Jean lays on him, jolting awake immediately and pushing himself away. They lock eyes, Jean standing there, hands still outstretched, Marco still grasping at the sheets around him. Then Jean makes a broken noise and Marco shudders. Jean is there in an instant, clambering onto the bed to grab him and pulling him close. They’re both shaking and Jean realizes his face is damp, has been since Sasha woke him up.

Neither one sleeps the rest of the night.

—

They both get a scolding from Armin the next morning, though probably not as harsh as it could be, with the blond eying the circles under their eyes, the paleness of their skin, and the way they’re leaning into one another’s personal space.

“I thought you guys were going to stay close to each other.”

“We did!” Jean’s protest is weaker than it should be. He glances guiltily at Sasha, gaze catching on the bruise that has bloomed across her cheekbone.

Shit. As if upchucking on her feet wasn’t bad enough.

It’s Friday, and Jean is skipping class. Marco has one in an hour that he’s determined to go to, and Armin had stopped by to check on them after his eight AM psychology class, and was greeted at the door by Sasha, a heavy purpling under her right eye, a small split in the skin over her cheekbone from where Jean had hit her in the throws of the nightmare as she tried to wake him. Armin had been full of fire until he’d barged into the kitchen to find them both at the table, nursing coffees, heads bowed.

He helped Sasha finish fixing them breakfast and dragged both out to the couch, where they now sit.

Jean glances up to find Armin watching him with that look that he now knows (remembers) means Armin is thinking, putting things together in his mind, and Jean didn’t even like being on the receiving end of that look when he  _didn’t_ remember everything. Now, he shifts uncomfortably, tiredly, in his seat.

“Just… at least sleep in the same room, okay? It’ll be easier on the both of you.”

—

That night, Marco climbs into Jean’s bed again, looking to him expectantly.

Jean frowns, crossing his arms and spinning his desk chair slightly away. “Just—go to sleep, I’ll turn off the light. I’m not tired yet.” But he had seen himself in the mirror not even an hour again and he knows how he looks. It’s perhaps the most blatant lie he’s ever told.

But Marco nods, smiling at him briefly before he ducks his head. A beat passes, then: “Well, goodnight, Jean.”

Jean somehow resists the urge to scoff. He swallows the sneer that was trying to spread across his face. “Night.”

Then Marco lays down, tugging the comforter up underneath his arm, rolling onto his side. Jean reaches, leaning to hit the light from where he’s sitting, then settles back in his chair, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Marco’s breathing finally evens out. Jean listens to the steady in-out, glancing at him every so often.

His eyes drift close.

—

_Bertoldt screams._

_An inhuman roar splits the air._

_Jean urges his horse faster._

_Horrific whistling noises, earth-shaking thumps, he’s suddenly fallingfallingfalling—_

—

 _Crash_.

It takes a long, disorienting moment for him to become aware of just where he is: on the floor, his chair on top of him, trapping him there. His pulse races beneath his skin, he feels weak and clammy, trembling, aching all over.

“J-Jean?!”

There’s a muffled thumping noise and when he turns his head slightly he can make out Marco also on the floor, struggling with the blankets.

Jean shudders, groans in pain.

Any other situation and the way Marco flails and scrambles to him would be endearing and hilarious, but Marco is visibly shaking, trying to get the chair off of Jean but his limbs aren’t quite moving right.

Sasha yanks the door open, swears, then lifts the chair up off of him.

Marco’s hands shake as he reaches out. Jean clutches at them and pulls himself halfway up, and Marco does the rest, gathering him into trembling arms. Jean lays there limply, head tucked beneath Marco’s chin.

He doesn’t notice Sasha going to the kitchen and returning with coffee, setting both mugs down carefully before leaving once more.

—

Saturday is spent in a useless daze, sitting around the apartment and watching TV.

—

Saturday night, and Jean gives in.

“Sure.”

They stand, and Jean turns away as Marco strips out of his shirt. He tugs his own off over his head, sheds his jeans, and crawls over onto the side of the bed he always sleeps on, tugging down the comforter. When he looks back to Marco, he’s bending to get at his duffel to pull out another shirt, and Jean almost swears, because he usually sleeps in just boxers, but—

His eyes dart over the spray of freckles across Marco’s shoulders and back and he almost swears again.

Marco pulls the shirt on over his head, face reappearing, and he blinks to find Jean staring.

Jean feels his face grown hot, and he makes to stand again, but—

“It’s—it’s fine, I promise, I’m just—I figured, the past few days, since it’s your—bed, I’d wear…”

“No, man, if you’re here, I should—”

“Jean, please.” Marco tugs the shirt down, fingers picking at the hem. “Don’t do something just on account of me.”

And that’s—

Jean doesn’t know how to feel about that.

Marco apparently doesn’t either, a crease appearing between his eyebrows.

( _Everything I_ did _was—_ )

“Let’s just—go to sleep,” Jean finally says, laying back and throwing an arm over his eyes. The light goes out, and he feels the other side of the bed dip down.

He eventually lifts his arm off his face, glancing to the side, and goes very still when he finds Marco watching him.

Marco, for his part, looks like he’s been caught, eyes widening slightly and his mouth twitching.

“Um. Goodnight, Jean,” he says, the corner of his lips tugging into something like a smile.

Jean stares a moment longer. “Uh. Yeah. Night.”

Marco turns away, giving him one last smile and watching him until he can’t anymore.

A beat, and then Jean does the same, turning away from Marco and closing his eyes.

—

_Marco._

_Marco._

_Marco._

_—_

He jolts away suddenly, trembling and drenched in sweat. It takes just a moment to get his bearings, to understand the darkness around him. The covers are in a state of disarray around him, and…

_Marco._

Jean looks to the side to see the dark haired boy shivering, brow furrowed as he grimaces with something like pain or fear.

Heart rate only just now slowing, Jean considers waking him. But…

Marco’s features twitch. Jean reaches out, gently laying his palm against Marco’s face. The other boys goes still, and Jean almost retracts his hand, but then Marco sighs in his sleep, relaxing. He shivers, once, against Jean’s palm, and when Jean glances down, he can make out goosebumps pebbling along his arms in the light filtering from the street.

Slowly, carefully, he moves, reaching down and working the blankets free from where it’s tangled in their legs, then draws it up over them both.

Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he scoots closer and carefully takes Marco’s hand in his own, watching the lines on the other boy’s face smooth out and disappear.

 _I can stay like this,_  Jean thinks.  _I’ll keep watch over him. I’ll keep him safe._

His eyes close.

—

Jean awakens slowly, consciousness drifting back to him in gentle waves. The first thing he’s aware of is how warm he is, curled forward slightly, forehead pressed against something firm and soft. There’s a slight weight over his arm and a gentle touch against his back, brushing over his skin across his shoulder blade. His eyes blink open, and the first thing he sees is baby blue. He inhales deeply, breathing in the scent of something that only relaxes him further, and he shifts forward slightly, when the touch on his back stills.

Suddenly he is fully awake, and in a fit of panic, he yanks himself back like the release of a trap. He is immediately rewarded with a sharp crack of pain against the crown of his head, and he hears Marco let out a cry of pained surprise.

Jean rubs his injured skull, wincing as he sits upright. “Oh, shit, Marco—”

Marco is holding his jaw and grimacing in pain, lips pressed firmly together.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry, I—”

But Marco shakes his head, waving Jean off. “No, it’s fine, my fault—” and Jean panics because that is definitely blood, blood in Marco’s mouth.

“Shit, you’re bleeding, here—”

“It’s okay, I just bit my cheek, I’m fine.” Marco tongues his cheek, then briefly touches his fingers to his lip, frowning lightly when they come back bloody. He sucks at the blood on his teeth and gives Jean a sheepish smile.

Jean feels wretched.

—

The two boys finally venture from Jean’s room.

(They don’t talk about it.)

Sasha is making French toast, and they’re both a little surprised to see she’s managed to put aside a few slices for them.

(They still don’t talk about it, not even as Marco absentmindedly tongues the inside of his cheek in between bites.)

They sit in the living room and work on homework. Well, Marco works, from what Jean can see, while Jean himself alternates between staring blankly at the open textbook in front of him and glancing at Marco.

They make a grocery run at Sasha’s insistence, though Jean suspects she’s just trying to get them out of the apartment at least once this weekend.

—

That night, Jean sets his alarm because they both have class on Monday. He pulls on a soft white undershirt, this time, and if Marco notices he doesn’t say anything.

They get in bed and Jean tries to relax.

_Calm down._

Marco smiles at him before the light goes out.

—

He doesn’t dream.

—

The jingle of his phone alarm drags him up out of sleep, and he snuffles a bit, then goes still.

His face is pressed to Marco’s shoulder blades, an arm over the brunette’s side.

Jean curses softly under his breath, then slowly, carefully extricates himself, sliding his arm away and shifting back. Then he rolls over, reaching for his phone and turning off the alarm.

“Hey, Marco.”

Marco makes a soft noise, shifting. “Hmm?”

“You got class in like an hour or something, right?”

Marco rolls slightly, looking over his shoulder and blinking at Jean. “What time is it?” he asks, voice muddled with sleep.

“Eight.”

That makes Marco sit up, rubbing at one eye. “Ah, yeah. I do.” He swings his legs off the other side of the bed, stretching. “Hey, Jean, can I borrow your shower?”

Jean nods. “Go ahead.”

Marco glances back at him, smiling softly. “Thanks. I’ll be right out.”

Once the door closes behind him and the noise of the shower starts, Jean flops back on his bed, covering his face with a pillow and groaning.

_Fucking moron._

—

Marco leaves, and Jean drags himself to class. Afterwards, he doesn’t feel like going home – he’s spent so much time there in the past few days, after all, so he just takes up space in one of the on-campus coffee shops, nursing a coffee that soon goes cold and getting glares from the various people looking for places to sit as he takes up a table large enough for at least three people by himself.

“Jean!”

He looks up to find Historia there, her eyes watching him carefully. He blinks at here, and she apparently finds something she was looking for in his expression, because her eyes widen, a smile blooming across her face as it brightens with joy.

“Oh, Jean, I’m so happy!” She slides into the seat next to him, grasping one of his hands in bother of hers. “Sasha told us the good news, but I wanted to—Ymir! Over here!” She turns and waves, and within moments, Ymir has appeared at her side, a drink in each hand. Her dark eyes dart down to the table, narrowing slightly at the way Historia is holding Jean’s hand in hers. But then Historia lets go, turning to accept her drink with both hands and a bright “Thank you!” Ymir’s expression goes soft, and quietly fond, and she pulls up another chair and sits next to Historia. “What’s up, horseface?”

Jean scowls at her, and she grins, despite the way Historia elbows her gently. “I was just saying that we’d heard the good news,” the blonde comments pointedly, though there’s no use in trying to hide her smile. Her eyes sparkle as she glances at the other girl.

“Yeah, Sash told us. Been a few days, right?”

“Yeah, since last Tuesday.”

Both girls’ demeanors shift.

“So…” Jean knows what Ymir isn’t asking.

He just shrugs.

“I’m—I’m sure Armin’s told you, but it’s—easier, if you’re together. They aren’t so bad that way.”

“Eh, they’ve practically stopped,” he half-lies.

“Oh… okay.” Historia frowns lightly, worried, and Ymir’s watching him with knowing eyes.

“Hey, Historia—” There’s something, Jean thinks, in the way Ymir says her name “—we should probably get going.”

The blonde girl blinks, looking up at the clock on the wall above Jean’s head. “Oh, you’re right…” She looks back to Jean. “Here! Let me…” She opens her bag, digging through it, brow furrowed, until finally Ymir reaches past her hand and pulls out a pen. Historia smiles, takes it, and leans over, stretching up to kiss her on the cheek with a chirped “thank you!” then turns away, grabbing a napkin from the dispenser on the table.

Ymir blushes lightly, blinking in surprise, and looking at the blonde with a soft kind of fondness that Jean hasn’t ever recalled really seeing on her face before (now that he remembers). That is, she does, up until she notices Jean staring, at which point she scowls, as if daring him to say something. He doesn’t, and finally her gaze slides back to Historia, who is finished writing on the napkin.

“Here!” She hands it to him. There are two numbers written on it. “The first one’s mine, the second is Ymir’s—” she ignores Ymir’s brief noise of protest “—if you need me and I don’t answer, you can just call her!”

Ymir makes a face. “Don’t call me.”

Historia gives her a look for that, elbowing her gently again, but then she smiles at Jean. She leans over to hug him briefly. “I’m really so happy for you, Jean,” she whispers in his ear before she pulls away, her eyes bright.

The pair then stands, and with one last “goodbye!” from Historia and a “Later” from Ymir, they leave.

Jean watches them go. As they exit the door, Historia switches the hand she’s holding her coffee in, reaching to interlace her fingers with Ymir’s.

He looks away.

—

It’s another twenty minutes of sitting there, doing nothing, before he swears softly and digs out his phone. He fiddles with it for a moment, then puts in both Historia and Ymir’s numbers, and after another minute of internal debate he pulls up Marco’s entry in his phonebook and presses send.

 _It’ll be fine,_  he thinks as it rings.  _You don’t need—_

“Hello?”

“Marco! Hey! It’s Jean.” God, he’s lame.

“Hi, Jean.” The note of something like fondness in Marco’s tone makes Jean’s heart rate pick up.

 _You have to do this_.

“So, uh, listen. I was thinking, you’re—we’re good, right?”

“What?”

“I mean with—” Jean glances around, but no one is paying any attention to him. He stands and makes to leave anyways, tossing his cup, still a quarter full, in the trash on the way out. “—with the nightmares and stuff. We were fine last night, right?”

“Yeah…”

“So I was thinking, you don’t need to—you probably wanna sleep in your own bed, yeah? I mean—” he swallows. “—by yourself.”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end of the line, and Jean takes a breath to speak when—“Oh, yeah. Okay.”

“Yeah, it’ll—be easier for you anyways, right? I mean, it’s not like you’re skipping class, so you’ll be back on campus, and—yeah.”

“Heh, that’s true.” There’s the briefest pause, and Jean almost misses it. “I—yeah, I have my early class tomorrow anyway, so…”

“Yeah!” Jean agrees, feeling simultaneously relieved and—disappointed, somehow. He’d almost expected… Well, he isn’t sure what he expected, exactly. Of course Marco wasn’t going to refuse him. Marco isn’t… he’s not that kind of person. And in any case, he doesn’t… Marco has better things to do, surely.

They’ll be fine.

—

_(He’s not fine.)_

—

Jean awakens so suddenly it feels like he’s been physically slapped out of the nightmare. He gasps for breath, flailing briefly before finally managing to sit up.

_Marco._

His shoulders shake as he wraps his arms around himself, drawing his knees to his chest and shuddering as he inhales. When he brings a hand to his face, he finds his cheeks wet.

God, he’s so  _stupid,_  how could he possibly have thought this would work.

He shakes there in the dark, then suddenly reaches for his phone, scrolling through his contacts to find Marco’s name.

His thumb hovers over ‘send.’

_Breathe in._

(He does.)

_Breathe out._

He shudders violently again as he exhales.

He presses send.

The line picks up halfway through the first ring, and Jean hates himself.

All he can hear is the sound of someone breathing on the other end.

“…Marco?”

There’s a soft noise, then: “Yeah.”

Jean swears. “Shit, Marco, I’m—” He swallows, covering his mouth briefly. “Can we— _shit_.”

Marco’s voice is small, whispered, when he speaks. “Can I come over?”

“ _Yes._  God, I’ll—I’m gonna meet you, go to the park on the north end of campus, it’s right about halfway, we’ll—”

“You don’t have to—”

“ _Yes,_  I do, shit, I’m—I’ll be there soon, yeah? Don’t—don’t take too long.”

Marco makes a strange huffing noise over the phone. “I won’t,” he replies, voice still weak.

—

Jean nearly runs to the park, slowing down only when he nearly eats pavement at one point, barely catching himself when he trips.

He waits, restless and fidgety, under a streetlamp.

When he looks up and spots Marco half a block away (he  _knows_ it’s Marco, it has to be Marco, of  _course_  it’s Marco), it’s everything he has not to just run to meet him. He does a sort of pathetic jog halfway, stumbling the last few steps as he takes note of Marco’s face, pale and drawn, gaunt, eyes red-rimmed in the light of the streetlamp. Jean reaches for him, clutching at the hoodie Marco’s wearing. He presses his face to the spot where Marco’s neck meets his shoulder.

“Fuck, Marco, I’m—I’m so sorry, I should’ve—”

Marco clutches at his shoulders and back, desperately, then he suddenly jerks away, grabbing Jean’s jaw with unsteady hands. He inhales shakily.

“Don’t—”

“I’m know, I’m  _sorry_ , I didn’t—”

Marco presses his forehead to Jean’s, swallowing, and Jean reaches up to hold his face too, pushing back when Marco's nose nudges his. Marco’s breath is hot on his face and Jean’s heart  _seizes_  in his chest and he tilts his chin up and their lips touch.

It’s not even a kiss, they just pant against each other’s mouths, until Jean turns his face away, Marco’s nose at his temple, his eyes clenching shut.

“Can we—” his voice is ragged, hoarse, as he whispers. “Can we go home? Please?”

Marco nods.

Jean doesn’t think twice as he lets go of Marco’s jaw to grab his hand, lacing their fingers together.

They walk back to Jean’s apartment.

In Jean’s room, Jean yanks off his shirt, kicking off his shoes and not even hesitating before just stripping down to his boxers. He turns to Marco, in the middle of taking off his own sneakers, and he pushes Marco’s hoodie off his shoulders and tugs at his shirt.

“Don’t—” But how do you ask for this? But Marco seems to understand, reaching back to pull his shirt off. He pushes off his jeans, then steps close, holding Jean’s face in both hands, foreheads pressed together, just breathing.

They stand there for a long moment, before Jean tugs on his hand gently.

“Come on,” he murmurs, suddenly exhausted.

They get in bed, pulling close, and Jean tucks his face into the hollow beneath Marco’s jaw and Marco shivers, once. They shift, carefully, quietly figuring out how to tangle their legs together, Marco’s arm wrapped around Jean’s shoulder and Jean holding his other hand in his own.

Jean sighs, his shoulders loosening.

“Goodnight, Jean,” Marco whispers into his hair.

Jean makes a soft noise in response, and then he drifts away.

—

He thinks he might remember something – a buzzing, maybe, feeling cold and disgruntled, but it’s like a dream within a dream – soon, warmth returns and he is content.

—

When he finally wakes, it’s slowly, gradually. He shifts, making a low noise, and his returning awareness brings to his attention the arm that tightens around his waist as he does so, the movement and soft noise of another behind him.

Jean shifts again, making a questioning noise. He manages to twist a little, look back over his shoulder, and Marco is there, squinting back at him.

There’s sunlight filtering in through his blinds, and Jean makes another noise, pulling away from Marco for just a moment to reach for his phone on the bedside table, checking it quickly with sleep-bleary eyes.

“Thought you had class,” he murmurs once he shifts back against Marco.

“I skipped,” Marco answers.

Jean pauses, going still, then he turns onto his back, looking at Marco fully. He peers at the other boy’s face, brow furrowing.

Marco smiles, sleepy and gentle, one hand coming up to smooth over Jean’s cheek.

Jean has no room in himself to protest. He goes easily.

The kiss is sleep-sour and slow, and their noses bump gently against each other before Jean pulls away to exhale against Marco’s mouth.

“You…”

Marco’s smile widens, just a little. “Sorry…”

That makes Jean scoff. “Uh, no. I’m the one that’s sorry. I’m—I was being stupid, I’m sorry. It was the worst idea ever. I thought—”

“I know. Now, at least. I know.”

And Jean is helpless to do anything but kiss him again, pulling him close, and Marco murmurs his name against his lips. It sends a tiny shock spiraling down Jean’s spine. He makes a soft noise against Marco’s mouth, shifting and seeking out Marco’s other hand with his own, holding on and squeezing.

Jean pushes himself up, breaking the kiss to stare down at Marco laying back against his pillow.

Marco blinks up at him, then smiles again. “You gonna go to class? You have one at ten, right?”

Jean snorts. “Yeah, no  _way.”_  He glances to the side, glaring mildly at his phone, mentally daring his alarm to go off.

Marco laughs. Jean’s heart stutters at the sound.

He can feel his face growing warm and meeting Marco’s gaze is near impossible.

“We should… talk about this, huh.”

Marco’s palm smooths across his face again, and Jean shivers.

“We will.” Marco’s smile is as certain as Jean’s ever seen it, as it always was.

And Jean…

Jean is  _home_. His heart is finally at ease.

He leans down and kisses Marco again.

—

_End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it! Thanks so much for sticking around and reading, I hope you enjoyed it, as I certainly enjoyed writing it! As I mentioned before, there will be a companion piece. It will focus primarily on the adult officers of the Survey Corps with appearances of the entire cast. Keep an eye open within the next month for the first chapter!!


End file.
